Hector Neris Is Walking A Tightrope

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So much has been made about the Chicago Cubs’ bullpen in the 2024 season. As a matter of fact, this is the third straight week that I have written about them. And can you blame me? The group, as a whole, is now 21st in baseball with a 4.33 ERA, according to FanGraphs. 

Image courtesy of © Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports

We’ve suffered through five early-season blown saves from Adbert Alzolay. He hasn’t been the closer since April 20, and that number is still tied for the MLB lead (though he did register a blown save in the eighth inning on May 3). Since that April 20 blown save, the back end of the Cubs’ bullpen has found stability from Mark Leiter Jr., who I wrote about a couple of weeks back, and Hector Neris. 

Wait, have they found stability in Neris? My blood pressure says no. Remember the leadoff walks to Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker when he was protecting a 3-1 lead in the ninth? Or when three of the first four Brewers reached against him when he was protecting a 6-4 lead? How about the improbable replay reviewed out at home plate against the Mets?

Somehow, some way, Neris always manages to wiggle out of these jams. Thus, his 3.00 ERA and six saves in seven chances say that the Cubs have found stability there. If the current year were, say, 2007, I’d throw my hands up, use some cliche about him knowing how to pitch to the score of the game, and go on my way. But this is 2024, and we have stats to quantify this now! I’d also argue that walking the leadoff man in the ninth inning of a two-run game is the opposite of pitching to the score. That is the exact situation where you should be challenging a hitter and forcing him to beat you if you fall behind in the count. 

Baseball Savant tracks the expected ERA for pitchers. This takes into account the strikeouts, walks, and hit by pitches a pitcher records, as well as the quality of contact on the balls that are put in play. The gap between Neris’ ERA (3.00) and xERA (6.36) is 3.36, which is the largest gap in baseball. According to xERA, Neris has been the luckiest pitcher in MLB so far this season. 

I’d caution anyone against looking at a pitcher’s expected ERA and immediately declaring that they’ve been lucky or unlucky. There is a lot that can go into a figure like that. If you see the largest gap in baseball, though, I’d say it warrants a look into why the expected ERA is so high. Unfortunately for the Cubs and Neris, the under-the-hood metrics on the veteran right-hander are rough. 

His 17.6 percent strikeout rate is a career low. His 18.9 percent walk rate is a career-high. That gives him a -1.4% K-BB%, the fifth worst among qualified relievers. Neris has succeeded to this point in his career on the back of mostly three pitches. He gets ahead of the hitter with a four-seam fastball or a sinker and puts them away with a splitter. All three of those pitches have performed considerably worse this season, but let’s focus on the splitter since that is his out-getter. 

According to FanGraphs, Neris has had a swinging strike percentage in the 20s on the splitter every year of his career (save for a one-inning debut in 2014). This season? It’s all the way down to 17.1 percent, a career low. He’s inducing swings on the splitter just 46.3 percent of the time, which is also a career low. The issue? He is in the zone with the splitter just 28.5 percent of the time, which is, you guessed it, also a career low. Looking at his heat map for the pitch in 2024 vs. 2023, it’s clear to see he is not executing the pitch to a location that he typically likes to:

If the splitter isn’t even close to the strike zone, it won’t get chases, and it will not get swings and misses, which is partially responsible for the depressed strikeout rate. If it’s that far out of the zone, it will just get taken for a ball, which is also partially responsible for the elevated walk rate. 

Where does that leave the Cubs? I would personally prefer not to see Neris closing games. While it hasn’t bitten them yet, it feels like it’s dangerously close to blowing up on them. However, Craig Counsell seems to disagree and keeps calling on the veteran to close games. Maybe Counsell knows that Neris found a four-leaf clover at some point recently. As fans, all we can do is enjoy the wild ride that is Hector Neris continuing to walk the tightrope. 

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